The Treasure Keeper

Chapter Twelve

For the first time in all her long and twisting flight to Paris, Zoe was uncertain of what to do next, or even where to go.

Hayden was actually dead. Her quest, her hope—all the meaning behind her risks, all the rewards worth the possible punishment awaiting her back in the shire—all to ash.

She didn't want to return to the Palais Royal to continue her hunt. She didn't want to stay in the cold, marbled mausoleum that was Tuileries. And she would never willingly visit a dance hall ever again.

Because the city now seemed a drab and dismal place, she wandered to the flower market banking the edge of the Seine. She found a seat on a bench between a stall of nodding tulips and one of orange blossoms on cut twigs and simply watched the passersby, shoppers and vendors, giggly girls in lace caps and crinoline picking out posies, sharp-eyed women with dirt on their aprons and wide-brimmed hats that flapped with the wind, the scent of soil and pollen and bulbs nearly overpowering the stink of sewage wafting from the river below.

Rhys had apparently taken her at her word last night and left her alone. She'd seen nothing of him so far today, not even a shimmer in window glass.

Fine. It was better this way. She wanted to mourn alone.

Between Zoe's fingers was the key she'd found in the wallet of the sanf. It seemed too small to be a house key. Too large to be the key to a diary, or even a jewelry box. When she rubbed it hard enough, the tarnish smudged her fingers, showing brass beneath.

There was a crude letter R scratched across the surface. She traced it with her nail, over and over, without even caring what it meant.

An elderly man eased down to the other end of the bench. He sat with his legs spread, holding a box of cut tulips and piles of small sackcloth bags, one atop another, his walking stick propped aslant against the arm of the bench. His skin was parchment pale and so thin she could see the fine spidering of veins across his cheeks, the thicker blue ropes along the backs of his hands.

He withdrew a handkerchief from his greatcoat and began to mop his face; beneath his bicorne and iron-gray toupee, he was sweating profusely. Someone called a question from behind another stall and the man flapped his handkerchief in response, not bothering to shout back.

Zoe returned to her contemplation of the key.

"A young lady so fetching should not be so sad."

She lifted her head to view the man. He wasn't looking at her.

"To be young," he said. "To be alive. Flowers and the cerulean sky. These things don't last forever. Best to..." He seemed to fumble for his words a moment. "Best to appreciate them while you can."

She sat up. The man still stared straight ahead, clutching his box. "You have life," said the man. "You still have that."

She blinked a little, glanced around. No one else paid them any mind. A liveried footman and a rose dealer were bickering over the price of his garlands; the candied perfume from the orange blossoms swirled around her like nectar in the air.

And because the day was clouded and not clear, because Hayden was dead and the sanf were miserably, enragingly real, Zoe cast the blue cloak at the old man.

Nothing.

She tried again, frowning at him, seeing the indigo depths of it feeling it fall about him, envelop him, his unadorned black coat and felt hat and buckled shoes .

But there was nothing there. The man was a field of blue upon blue, a blank spot in the eternity of its depths.

He turned his face and looked at her, empty hazel eyes that sent a chill skittering along her skin.

"Excuse me," she managed, and stood, clutching the key in her fist.

"Will you take a flower?" asked the man, and raised a tulip to her, the petals streaked pink and red. But he held it too hard; the stem bent in his hand, and the flower fell sideways to tap his vest. "A small token to your beauty."

She walked off. She moved stiffly, her heartbeat in her ears, her feet crunching across the pea-stone gravel, and had gotten at least six feet away before she heard the man calling after her.

"Zee. Zee!"

She stopped, swiveled slowly about. He was still sitting on the bench, holding out the tulip.

She scanned the surroundings very quickly, saw no ghost nearby, no shadow or smoke beyond the white drifting spire of a nut roaster down the lane, searing chestnuts over charred wood.

"Here," said the old man. His arm gradually lowered. "I'm here, Zoe Lane."

Sweet heavens. She crossed back to him warily, clutching at her elbows beneath her shawl. The sanf key pressed unbending against her palm.

"I wanted to see if I could do it," said the elderly man quickly, tonelessly. "Do it again, I mean." He switched to English. "And I can. It's not as difficult as last night. This fellow's not in the best of health, but he's mobile, and he can breathe. I can breathe, Zoe. God, I can breathe and smell flowers. I can see you."

"Get out of him," she said, flat.

"Not yet. I still feel strong enough to—"

"Get out of him. Leave him be."

"But—"

"Have some respect for the living, Rhys Langford." Her voice was throbbing; a knot of hot fury had lodged beneath her breastbone and she didn't even know why. "He has friends here. I saw them. You don't know who he is, if he's married, who loves him. You don't know what you're doing to him. Get out."

The man fell quiet. He released the bent tulip; it flopped to the bench by his leg, then to the dirt. He took a shuddering breath and brought a hand to his face.

Zoe moved before him, sending out the cloak again. "Sir. Are you well? You seem quite pale."

... for genevi eve's garden, she'll like them best, these are her favorites, yes, and then the moorish yellows to maurice, he'll be fine with those, good bulbs, good roots, exactly as i'd hoped

"Yes," said the man, and groped until he located his handkerchief again. He dabbed at his forehead. "Thank you, mademoiselle, I'm quite well. I fear the sun off the water gave me something of a turn, but I'm better now." He peered up at her, and his eyes were watery and bright. "An old man, you know. We move in fits and starts, but we get where we're going. All in good time, yes?"

She smiled and nodded and moved on.

"There." The shadow was beside her, gliding in his graceful, smoky way. "No harm done."

She spoke without moving her lips. "You didn't know."

"I did, though. I did, in a way. I could feel his heart. I could control his respiration. I felt everything just as he did. The bench. The sun. He's hungry. He was slightly out of breath. There's a problem with his left leg, I think it's gout. But he wasn't frail." Rhys took a few longer steps and moved in front of her, his expression serious: straight dark brows, intent green eyes. "I would not have hurt him on purpose. You should know that. He was innocent, and I would not have hurt him."

She had to stop in the middle of the path so as not to walk through him. A trio of young boys knotting twine around bundles of dried lavender watched her curiously from their booth, tiny purple buds clinging to their arms and shirts, all three knives paused in midair.

Rhys inclined his head and offered her a bow, edging out of her way. She resumed walking. He kept pace.

"It is a wonder to me," he said, low. "Life. Just for those few minutes. Just that short slice of time, to feel alive again, even in pain. I—I would give anything."

She cut her eyes to him. His head was bowed; his profile was sharp and clean and as handsome as ever, and she could see right through him, past flower stalls and masted boats, all the way across the Seine. When he shook his head, the smoke that defined him bloomed up and away.

"Anything to have my life back."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, because she couldn't think of any other response.

"Are you indeed?" He smiled grimly to the ground. "So am I."

* _{* *}

"It is the key to a door," announced the locksmith. He turned the key over and around between his blackened fingers, squinting at the shape.

Zoe set her reticule upon the counter before her. The locksmith shop was small and crammed with bits of jagged metal and machinery, shavings of brass and pewter and lead fallen into little drifts upon the floor. An apprentice with shaggy red hair worked in a corner by a window, meticulously folding crimps into a strip of copper fixed between two vises. He was seventeen or eighteen, and kept darting looks at her through his hair with every few turns of his wrist.

The locksmith, however, was easily in his eighties and had barely managed a civil greeting from over his magnified spectacles. He slapped the key from the sanf upon his counter with an emphaticclin/t.

"What manner of door?" Zoe asked.

The smith's face wrinkled into a grimace. "One with a lock that will fit this key."

"Dee-lightful," said Rhys, lounging with his arms crossed against the store's doorway. He had not ventured more than two steps inside. Zoe wondered if he heard what she did, all the strange and clashing songs of the metals here, groaning and sighing and frenetic singing, a near cacophony in her head.

She tried to smile past her growing headache. "Your indulgence, sir. Is it possible to be more specific?"

"It is ordinary," said the man, impatient, jabbing a finger at the key. "Do you see this shank? This rounded bow for the hand? Ordinary. It's not even a passkey. This might fit a dozen different warded locks, mademoiselle. One to a salon. To a linen closet. A butler's pantry. Do you see? There are likely ten thousand such keys in St. Germain alone."

She pressed a hand to her temple. "Yes. Thank you. I see."

"Six sous," grunted the smith.

From his place by the door, Rhys gave a snort. "Thief."

She was inclined to agree. The smith pocketed the money and turned away without another word, hobbling to a workbench crowded with tools, squatting down to his seat with an audible popping from his knees. When his fingers found and curled about a solitary pick, it shrilled a sound like a flute: a series of high, reedy notes overpowering all the rest.

The apprentice watched her leave. She felt his eyes, at least, on her back as she closed the door carefully behind her.

"What's amiss?" asked the shadow, ever alert.

She swallowed and looked around the little street, taking in the rows of tall scarlet-leafed trees with their roots growing over the curbs and the sky flashing patches of blue between the clouds. The air, not so thick now with the aroma of metal that it felt like a coating down her throat.

"Nothing. My head pains me a little. That's all."

"Are you ill?"

"No." She began walking. "It was that place. Didn't you hear it? All that noise?"

"What, from the boy in the corner there? He was quiet as a mouse."

"From the metal, Rhys." She shot him a quick look. "All the songs from the metals."

He was silent, matching her steps. A woman in a plum-colored shawl and striped skirts marching from the other direction barreled straight through him without hesitation, carrying a basket of eggs over one arm. She didn't even blink as her face broke through his chest.

The shadow puffed and dissolved and re-formed. It didn't seem like he missed a step. Zoe looked again: yes, dark and still perfect, smoke and haze.

"You didn't hear it?" she asked softly.

"Not really. I suppose I did, somewhat. But mostly what I hear ..."

"Yes?"

"I hear another song. Something constant. Compelling." Rhys stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and so she did too, facing him, then backing up to stand against the building behind her as more people bustled by.

She pretended to adjust the ribbon of her hat, using her hand to shield her lips as she spoke. "Is it from a stone?"

"No. I don't know. It's not like anything I've ever heard before. It changes. It's—look, I can't talk about it. I can't think about it too much. If I think on it, it grows stronger."

Zoe hesitated. "Is it . celestial?"

The shadow paused, then threw back his head and laughed. "Do you mean, are the heavens calling? No. I doubt that very much."

The street had cleared for the moment; there was only a caped rider on a cob coming slowly down the way, and he was still a block off. She turned to face Rhys squarely, abandoning her pretense with the hat. She remembered him speaking of music the other night, with the yellow moon and the cloud. How completely he had vanished after, as if he'd never been.

He gazed back at her from that lean and darkened face.

"You know, you should consider the possibility—"

"No."

"Rhys—"

"No," he said again, louder. The halo of smoke around him seemed to contort, grow more dense. "It's not like that. It's not heavenly music. It's ... something more aggressive than that. I don't feel happy when I hear it. I feel absorbed. As if it wants to devour me. And it is succeeding."

The breeze took the loosened ribbons from her hat and tugged at them by her chin, strips of dancing satin. Rhys tipped his head and raised a hand as if to catch one, and the ends fluttered through his closed fingers.

"What is it now?" she asked. "The song?"

"It's a ballad. Slow. Tender. You can't hear it?" He was watching the ribbons with half-lidded eyes, sounding strangely distant.

She shook her head.

His lashes lifted, and his hand fell away. "Good. It's sentimental rubbish."

The rider and cob were nearly upon them; she captured the ribbons and tied them in a firm bow beneath her chin, beginning to walk on.

The cloak swooped over her. That quickly, she lost the street and Rhys and the trees and sky; she was suspended in the blue, weightless, voiceless, caught with all the sudden bright faces and spirits rushing toward her, eager hands reaching for her—

Hayden. She saw him. But he wasn't like the rest, not pale or glowing. He was vivid and alive and smiling at her, saying something she couldn't hear. His hair was mussed and he hadn't shaved, and she could see the sun glinting off his whiskers as he ran a hand down his cravat—

She was released back to the Paris sidewalk. She stumbled at once across a pebble and felt it as Rhys automatically reached for her, his hand pushing against, then sliding through her arm, the cold biting into her so fiercely that she yanked back, gasping.

"What is it? What's wrong?" He nearly reached for her again and only just caught himself in time, his hands clenching into fists. "Zee, what happened?"

But she had whirled about to see the rider on the horse. And the rider on the horse had twisted in his saddle to see her.

It was a boy. A young man, rather. He was ivory-skinned and black-haired and had eyes of absolute crystalline gray, nearly without color.

The boy was drakon.

And she had plucked the image of Hayden from his memory, she was sure of it.

She lifted her skirts and stepped straight out into the street, forgetting Rhys, forgetting the horse, which rolled its eyes at her and reared, backing away across the cobblestones in a great clatter of iron-shod hooves. The young drakon struggled with the reins; his hat tumbled to the ground and was trampled and still the cob wouldn't calm. Zoe stopped walking. She stood still in the street as faces began to appear in shop windows, and the horse let out a squealing protest when the boy tried to wheel it about.

He gave up, apparently. With the grace of an acrobat, he flipped his right leg over the saddle and dismounted, still holding the reins, moving swiftly to stand in front of the beast, both hands lifted to its face, his voice a soft cadence of sound.

She watched him, waiting. Shadow Rhys had appeared at her side, also watching. The Others at the windows, and on the sidewalks, moving like ants up and down the street.

"He's one of us," Rhys said. She felt his tension, the quiver of agitation ripping through him.

"I know."

The horse was settling, and the young man was running a hand down its neck. He dared a glance over his shoulder at Zoe again, and Rhys began, very quickly, to speak. "Do you remember hearing back in the shire about the sanf inimicus, about how they would sometimes use drakon of diluted blood to help in their hunt, dragons they'd either kidnapped or coerced? This can't be a coincidence. I don't know who the hell this is, but you've got to get out of here. Now."

"His blood is not diluted," she muttered. She felt the animal in this boy as strongly as any of the strongest of the shire. As strong as Rhys himself, back in life: waves of power, tightly leashed.

"Fine! It's not! But he could still be one of them!"

A carriage rattled around a curb, hurling right toward her. She began a clipped walk toward the gray-eyed drakon, who had shifted with his mount to the side of the road. "I saw Hayden through him. I saw a memory of Hayden in his mind."

"Zoe—don't be stupid, I know you're not this stupid—"

"I'm not stupid at all," she said out loud, and went up to the boy.

The cob jerked its head but the drakon didn't loosen the reins, and it stopped after that. She stood with her arms folded to her chest to better contain her scent, and regarded the dragon-boy.

He was, of course, quite handsome, rawboned and thin in that way that the youngsters of the tribe sometimes were before finishing their final spurt of growth. He was dressed simply but well, in black buckskin and garnet velvet, a bandanna of crisp bleached linen tied about his neck. His hair had been pulled back with a leather tie, but perhaps the ride had loosened it; strands of ebony brightened and faded beneath the shifting autumn clouds.

She saw him reach for his hat, realize it was back in the street, and then grant her a formal bow anyway, one leg outstretched.

"Who are you?" she demanded in French.

"Sandu, Noble One, your servant," he replied, courteous, rising from his bow. "You must be English. Are you from the shire?"

Zoe took a step toward him, nearly as tall, certainly more deadly, at least in these slow-ticking seconds. She felt the fury of a tempest whirling through her; she felt she could destroy him with a single focused thought. From the corner of her eye, the shadow loomed larger and larger, a rising darkness just at her hand.

"I'm going to ask you a question, Sandu. Consider your answer to me with extreme care. What have you done with the yellow-haired drakon who came to Paris last May? The one with the whiskers and the cravat." Her voice began to shake. "What have you done with Hayden James?"

The boy raised pointed brows. "Done with him? Why, nothing,mademoiselle. I left him back at the maison, not an hour past. He said he had a letter to write."

And just then the sun came out, a beam of luminous light that splashed all across them, and lit his hair to midnight blue and the pale crystal of his eyes to summer gold.

He smiled at her, and it was breathtaking.

* * *

The maison was modest by Sandu's standards. He hailed from a castle, after all, the finest castle upon earth, and there would never be a human structure to compare to it.

But the Parisian house they had rented was located in a safely residential section of the city, which he knew was important. Artisans and merchants and the better sort of tradesmen had bought their homes here, solid and skinny tall brick homes with shared stables and narrow long yards, one after another after another, street after street. The same families walking about. The same screeching children playing in the lanes. The same public fountains with women gathered about them, filling pails, gossip. The same wine shops and taverns and fruit markets. Nothing in this part of St. Antoine stood out in any way, which was good.

He had memorized the way there and back to their own place, of course. He knew a score of different routes for it, and varied them day by day, just in case.

Today he took one of the longer routes, although he could not say exactly why. Perhaps it had to do with the drakon woman walking silently beside him.

She was spectacular. Zoe, she'd said her name was, her accent giving the syllables that frank English twist he was gradually becoming used to. Zo-eey Lane. And because Sandu recognized that name, because there could really be no question that she was at least what she said she was, he was taking her home.

The long way. Down the back streets. The mare clip-clopped at his other side; he would not ride while a lady was forced to walk. Although the mare had proved her patience with him until today, it was clear she would not abide this particular lady to ride.

So they walked. And it was slow. And yes, Zoe Lane was dazzling to look upon. It was no terrible inconvenience to be forced to spend more time surreptitiously studying her. Sandu would guess he was a good ten years younger than she, but that didn't mean he couldn't let loose his imagination to some slight degree. She had, after all, all that amazing silvery-white hair, more or less half-coiled and half-loose down her back, just as the Frenchwomen styled it. It was the kind of hair he imagined he could slip his fingers through, and it would feel like—like ermine. He was certain of it. And she had those lips—lips so full and rosy soft, like she'd just been kissed, like she was made to be kissed. She probably tasted like something wonderful too. Apples, or sweet cider, or lilacs.

She glanced aside and caught him staring. Sandu faced forward again quickly, pulling the mare along, feeling his cheeks begin to color.

From somewhere behind him, he could have sworn he heard a huff, like someone releasing a breath too close to his neck.

And that brought him abruptly back to the real reason he was guiding them so slowly back to the maison: he could not quite rid himself of the feeling that they were being followed.

He'd checked and checked, and never saw the same face twice behind them for more than a few streets in a row. If they were being followed, it was by someone better at tracking than he, and that really wasn't possible.

Still. He wished the skin between his shoulder blades would cease to crawl.

Finally they reached the painted brick house. He took her around the back way so he could stable the horse—Zoe Lane lingered at a distance, which he thought was a good idea—then led her step by serpentine step to the stairs of the rear entrance, not bothering to point out the hidden wires they'd strung around the perimeter of the garden, the bells that would ring when tripped, the diamonds buried in the sod that would cry out with the pressure of a foot. The red jasper they'd wedged into the wood of the doorjambs and windowsills that would rumble and hum should anyone pass through.

She was a dragon. She would smell the wires and the bells. She would hear the soft murmurs of the diamonds, the resonance of the jasper anyway.

Sandu found his key, unlocked the back door, and like the gentleman he was, allowed her to enter first.